Long Hours Predict Cognitive Decline

摘要

Excessive working hours may predict long-term decline in cognitive function, according to the latest findings from the Whitehall II study of British civil servants. A battery of tests, including short-term memory, reasoning, vocabulary and phonemic fluency, was used to test cognitive function at baseline and at five-year follow-up. The effects were cumulative; the longer the working week, the worse the test results were. Employees with long working hours also had shorter sleeping hours, reported more symptoms of depression and used more alcohol than those with normal working hours.